


heavily, the low sky raining

by philthestone



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sci Fi Dystopia, F/M, Gen, alternatively alternate universe depressed graduate students stuck in a space outpost, in the aftermath of the end times, maya this is all for u my love, sorry guys i also dont know what this au setting is!!!, super vague descriptions of star trek inspired worldbuilding, yes I know I know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24674386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: "Anne’s feeling that word where you’re missing something you never had,” explains Diana, as they come to a stop outside of Terran Outpost AV1883's lone lab entrance.“Weltschmerz,” says Gilbert immediately.“I amnot,” says Anne, “feelingweltschmerz.”
Relationships: Anne Shirley & Muriel Stacy, Diana Barry & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley, Marilla Cuthbert & Anne Shirley
Comments: 24
Kudos: 65





	heavily, the low sky raining

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weaslayyy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/gifts).



> my first forray into anne fic after a decade of living and breathing by these characters and???? i write??? this??? i cant really explain what this is other than "a mess". but i stand by it. written for maya, even though it's not actually any of the prompts you sent me; you're so far away from me and i cant give u a hug, but hopefully reading this will feel like one
> 
> title is from tennyson and reviews are love, kiddos. keep fighting the good fight, even if you're fighting to figure out how to fight.

Anne decides very early in the day cycle that she is full of melancholy.

“I’m full of melancholy,” she declares to Diana, as they walk to the lab together. It’s grey out, which is not so unusual because it is grey out every day, of the manufactured, foggy atmospheric sort. “Or perhaps morose,” Anne continues. “Actually, Diana, I think I might be that word that describes how you feel when you miss something that never existed in the first place.”

“If anyone knows what that word is, Anne,” says Diana, the most stalwart of friends, “it’s you.”

“Saudade?” says Anne. “Or perhaps hiraeth. Those are both such romantic additions to one’s vocabulary, don’t you think Diana? Hiraeth could be the heroine in a pre-modern Greek epic -- you know those on the data copy Dr. Stacey’s old contact found on her anthropological dig.”

“The one that’s banned in three galactic quadrants,” agrees Diana. And then, “I’m sorry you feel that way today, Anne.”

The Greyness persists. Anne wishes they could see the stars; perhaps she’ll ask Dr. Stacey later if they can turn on the old prototype simulation ceiling, to collectively experience a moment of profound contemplation. Dr. Stacey always encourages moments of profound contemplation. Anne sighs, and they pause, deliberate, outside of the lab’s main entrance. Terran Outpost AV1883 only has one lab, and that lab only has one entrance, and that makes at once for potentially very mundane entrances and potentially very dramatic entrances. 

Squaring her shoulders, Anne summons the most Marillaish part of herself and says,

“I suppose it’s no use slouching about when there’s work to be done.”

Diana -- sweet, beautiful, transcendent Diana -- takes Anne’s hand in her own and looks at her with great encouragement. “Moody’s samples are going to be needing documentation today,” she agrees.

“Oooh,” says Anne, making a face. “Moody’s _samples_.”

A New Voice sounds, in a nice, pleasant tenor, which she knows comes out of a nice, pleasant-shaped mouth, hovering above not-nice-at-all, un-pleasant broad shoulders that Anne most certainly does not find herself thinking about at odd moments when she’s neck deep in translating incoming comm. signals for the outpost’s records. 

“What are we _ooohing_ about?” 

This is what they get, Anne supposes, for stopping and contemplating presupposed melancholy by the only entrance to Terran Outpost AV1883’s lab. 

“Moody’s samples,” says Diana practically, which of course has Gilbert Blythe, owner of The New Voice, mirroring Anne’s earlier face.

“ _Hm_ ,” he says, with significance.

“And Anne’s feeling that word where you’re missing something you never had,” explains Diana. 

“Weltschmerz,” says Gilbert immediately.

“I am _not_ ,” says Anne, “feeling _weltschmerz_.”

“Alright,” says Gilbert, and grins, and swipes his key card to open the lab door. 

“I’m not!” calls Anne after him. Diana gives her a sympathetic look. 

It seems their entrance today is going to be of the decidedly more mundane sort.

Ruby is always quick to bring up the fact that she wasn’t even trying to complete a doctorate; _she_ only started here as admin help on a summer job, because her parents stopped funding her weekend excursions to the inner core and she needed the units.

“I’d thought I’d go into politics or something,” Ruby says with an absent sort of longing, sweetly twirling the end of one long golden curl at the end of a dainty finger. Ruby still wears her hair like they did on WiPo V before the riots broke out; she has all the tutorials data-loaded to her personal info screen and tries a new one every morning. 

Anyway, politics is a lost cause too now, so she’s stuck here with them as a glorified lab assistant.

“At least _we_ all _wanted_ to be here,” says Moody, in a sort-of-sweet display of support. “Ruby got posted here through clerical error.”

“We _all_ got posted here through clerical error, Moody,” says Anne, spinning around in the lab’s lone hovering office chair with great dolore. AV1883’s occupants are spread out in organized chaos throughout the lab’s main workspace, half gathered in the breakroom and half absorbed by the menial tasks of benchwork that they are doggedly pursuing despite foregone bionuclear apocalypse and the subsequent shutdown of all non-fascist institutions.

Anne supposes her mood of melancholy is not so unreasonable, un- _likable_ as it is. “It’s the universe’s final smite upon the vivacity and potential of youth. Who knows what great achievements any one of us might have attached to our names had our legacies not been tied to the _blight_ upon the starstreams that is The Fort of Misery?”

“Didn’t we agree to stop calling AV1883 The Fort of Misery?” Jane wants to know, after she sensibly swallows a mouthful of rehydrated ration pack. Jane is infinitely practical. 

“We did,” agrees Gilbert. The corners of his mouth are twitching, but at Anne, and not at Jane. He points to the databoard of Rules, which hovers, mockingly just now, above the impromptu lunch table adjacent to the biotech bench. “Just there, under _no sniffing_ _of the biohaz dishes_ and _no answering incoming comm.s with pre-federation Russian accents_.”

Anne summons the most dignified expression in her arsenal. “I maintain that was an impeccable Galatian. _Post_ -reformist.”

Gilbert is in the middle of logging progress on the aforementioned biohaz dishes. He raises an elegant eyebrow that Anne does not appreciate, as she is quite familiar with it. 

“Don’t tease, Gilbert,” says Diana, passing through with an armful of disposable plastipacks, but without much real feeling. 

It seems Anne’s surrounded by traitors and braggarts today.

“ _Anyway_ ,” says Anne. Then she pauses. “I suppose I am sorry for your predicament, Ruby.”

“That’s alright.” Ruby sighs with that same sort of absent longing. “Though this whole apocalypse thing isn’t quite as romantic in real life as the stories made it out to be, is it.”

“Those are all pre-federation,” says Anne immediately, with a vehemence. Surrounded by his biohaz dishes, Gilbert hides a small, perhaps inappropriate smile.

“Oh, I forgot,” says Ruby, “you were doing your degree in that, or something.”

Anne’s chest is puffed out with righteous inhalation. It deflates.

“Or something,” she agrees, sagging back into the Lone Hoverchair and watching as Jane takes another bite of her rehydrated ration pack with practiced enthusiasm.

Moody and Jane and Ruby think they’re lucky to have been posted so far out of the way, so they’re not bothered by the peacekeeper patrols. Diana is glad they’re all together at least. Gilbert’s grateful that he’s not had to abandon his dissertation research _completely_ , as they still have a half-functional lab.

Anne doesn’t know how she feels about the _situation_ , per say, but she does believe with great conviction that Dr. Stacey is a legend and a hero.

“Datalog PR 3, six hundred and twelve days and counting. Recording incoming comm. from admin station 55. To be read as _continue with regular activities_. No commentary required. End datalog.”

“Hanging in there, Anne?”

Anne tugs her headset down so that it rests, as slumped as the rest of her, around her neck, and turns to face her guest. The protocol-issued uniform jacket has been very practically rolled up at the sleeves, and Anne thinks it looks terribly dashing. Whenever Anne rolls her jacket sleeves up they scrunch awkwardly and are miserably uncomfortable. Marillia would call the fabric design a disgrace.

“I am firmly of the belief that they’ve forgotten all about us,” Anne declares.

“They?” asks Dr. Stacey, owner of inquiring voice and dashing jacket sleeves.

“The feds,” says Anne. “The corrupt body of peacekeepers. The anachronistically fascist institutions that have cropped up in a time that requires anything but that. The universe, maybe.”

“Oh, Anne,” says Dr. Stacey, “I know. But we must make the best of it! There’s always something to do, still.”

Muriel Stacey, PhD. -- Anne knows -- takes her role as chief science officer to forgotten outpost lab in the aftermath of The End Times very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that she’s given full junior officer privileges to the motley collection of graduate students shoehorned into her care, who are not actually graduate students any longer because their efforts towards achieving doctoral scholarship were thwarted by total infrastructural collapse. 

Even Anne has to acknowledge a certain level of poetic irony in that turn of events.

“I suppose,” Anne says. The logged comm. beeps beside her, waiting for her manual confirmation. 

“I’ll call you for the c-lead meeting in ten,” says Dr. Stacey. “We’re going to have to do something about the zarg beetle infestation we’ve got going in the basement.”

“Oh, no,” says Anne, horrified. “Moody’s _samples_.”

“Moody’s samples,” agrees Dr. Stacey -- grimly. “Gilbert’s just finishing up with his phase 2 project work. If you can tell Diana --”

“Of course, Dr. Stacey,” says Anne, clutching her headset with determination. It gets caught a little in one braid, and tugs, uncomfortably. “You can _count_ on me.”

The look Dr. Stacey gives her before popping back out of the room can only be described as sympathetic.

Anne sighs, with gusto, and lets her hand slam downwards on the beeping log without looking at it.

“There is always something new to learn,” Anne quotes rhetorically, at the seemingly empty prototype simulation ceiling. Nothing’s on, so all she can see above her is sad, desolate grey sky.

“I think I might have discovered the cure for cancer,” Gilbert agrees. He sits down beside her and hands her half of his rehydrated ration pack. Anne groans.

“Of course you have. And I’m stuck here translating _the_ most mundane comm. transmissions, because I decided to do a degree in historical literature and _not_ geometry, when the whole galaxy’s fallen apart.”

“You can’t help the whole galaxy, Anne,” says Gilbert practically.

“Says the man who allegedly just cured cancer,” she snaps. 

Well. It’s not so much of a snap. More of a snip. Gilbert sighs, deeply, and steals a mouthful from her half of the rations.

“I didn’t say we’d be able to do much with it. We’re all stuck out here, Anne-girl.”

Anne very abruptly feels a wave of homesickness. She misses Marilla, and the farm, and the visits to Aunt Josephine on Terran Outpost CH1890, before everything sort of imploded. Not that it wasn’t good and ready to implode -- Anne was always the first to bring that up, at faculty parties and with Green Gables’ neighbors and every time she and Diana attended the protests in Outpost TO1800’s main square. But the _after implosion_ part. She’d always thought, when she imagined it, that she’d be more in the thick of things.

A rebel leader, maybe, leading her guerilla troops to storm the galactic parliament steps. Or an inspirational speaker, or a ferrier of desperate refugees, or a daring humanitarian reformist, radicalizing the downtrodden of TO1800.

She looks down at her half of the ration pack. Anne doesn’t remember anyone calling her _Anne-girl_ since Aunt Josephine. She’s not sure when Gilbert started. Something about the way he says it is the same and not the same, makes Anne feel that sort of inspired confidence but also makes her feel distinctly _known_ in a way she’s not sure what to do with.

Aunt Josephine says _Anne-girl_ like a bugle horn, like a call to action. Anne could do anything when she was _that_ Anne-girl.

Gilbert says it like that’s already a foregone conclusion, and that version of her and every other is safe in his mouth. No challenge; just affection. Her heart thumps.

Ironic, that it’s _Gil_ and there’s no challenge. She’ll think of one, maybe, to pass the time.

“I miss Marilla,” she says.

“I know,” says Gilbert, sighing again.

“I feel so useless, Gil. This is a _scientific outpost_. You’re all -- doing things, and learning things, and contributing to an ever-expanding body of knowledge --”

“-- that potentially won’t be used by anyone, due to total infrastructural corruption and collapse --”

“That’s _not_ true,” says Anne. To her horror, there’s a lump at the back of her throat. “I’m logging pre-programmed weekly instructions from what’s probably an e-run monitoring system. They barely care that we’re here but we can’t escape them, either, and it’s _my_ job to keep that all recorded! I can’t even help with Moody’s _samples_ , because that’s --”

“Ruby’s job,” finishes Gilbert, in a tone where the humour is implied but also withheld because he is quite a considerate human person, Anne has realized, once you get to know him.

“ _Yes_ ,” says Anne, and her voice warbles. “I can’t even be of use to Marilla. She sent me off to get my education and _look_ what happened.”

Another deep sigh. He rests his elbows on his knees, and hangs his head over to look at her. In the grey light his brown skin looks markedly less healthy than it usually is; Anne’s sure _she_ must look positively ghastly. “You know that’s not your fault, Anne.”

“Says the man who --”

“I _really_ shouldn’t have opened with that, should I --”

“Oh, shut up, Gilbert Blythe. You always were meant to help people.”

“And you weren’t?”

There it is -- the challenge. She was so sure it would turn up.

She looks at him, under the grey of the dormant prototype simulator, and doesn’t know how to give an answer.

Anne and Diana are trying to handle their zarg beetle infestation -- Moody’s samples really are going through the ringer -- when there’s a blip in routine. It sort of happens in a flurry, because one minute Anne’s waving around a broom she’s sure dates back to pre-federation times and the next the door to the basement storage bunker is _shhhk_ ing open and Gilbert and Moody are herding inside -- _people_.

The bunker door _shhk_ s back closed. 

“Their pod almost crashed through the low-grav bubble,” Gilbert gasps, tugging off his oxymask. “Anne --”

“Bring them inside, bring them inside!” Diana says, hollers more like, waving Anne’s broom. Somehow despite it all, she remains poised as one of those statues one would find in the elegant city terraces of Galatian Quadrant 04. “ _Oh_ \-- is anyone hurt?”

“Two mild sprains and a concussion, and some oxygen deprivation,” says Gilbert, shaking the atmospheric residue out of his curls like one of those Oroni puppies Anne and Diana loved to croon over whenever they passed the pet store on TO1800, on their way to campus. “I can handle it, with Dr. Stacey’s help.”

“Okay,” says Anne, “Okay, close the door, everyone single file -- were they --?”

“Peacekeepers,” says Moody, almost fearfully. Across the room, Gilbert catches Anne’s eye -- bleak confirmation.

The four of them stare at Terran Outpost AV1883’s shivering, bedraggled, unanticipated new houseguests. 

And then Anne says, “ _Marilla?!_ ” in a most shocked and taken-aback tone.

“ _Anne_?!”

There’s Davy and Dora and Aunt Josephine too, and Mr. _Harrison --_

“Peacekeepers,” confirms Aunt Josephine, gripping her cane and looking from Gilbert to Anne, as Marilla rushes forward as sensibly as a human person can rush. Anne’s too busy hugging her mother to be shocked that she’s here, and in such good health; Diana has no such distractions at her disposal. Her mouth’s just gaping wide open. “They’d practically run the place over. Marilla came to me for help.”

“Well now,” says Marilla; only Anne can feel her arms tremble. “We didn’t know _you’d_ be here or anything, Anne. Heaven knows we didn’t know _what_ to think.”

“We shoulda stayed and knocked ‘em all down,” says Davy.

“Fiddlesticks,” says Marilla. “Green Gables’ll be fine on its own, for a while.”

But it’s clear she has her doubts. Aunt Josephine looks grim. There are other familiar faces in the small crowd, all equally drawn and hesitant and worried.

Anne abruptly remembers that there are cameras upstairs; this is a government run facility, technically speaking.

They are government employees, _technically speaking_.

They barely have enough supplies to feed themselves, and, theoretically, they could be visited for a routine inspection --

“At any given moment in time, dependent entirely on the whims of the universe,” Anne utters, in slowly dawning horror. “Oh, no.”

“Was this a bad idea?” says Moody, _almost_ like a question.

Gilbert says nothing, and only looks harried. Diana holds the broom closer to herself.

“Anne --” she says, “what are we going to do?”

“There aren’t any cameras in the bunker downstairs,” says Dr. Stacey, and just like that it’s all decided.

“Only the zarg beetles,” says Jane.

“And Moody’s samples,” adds Ruby, sadly.

Moody groans and covers his face with one hand.

Anne’s stopped feeling melancholy, at least. “An illegal refugee camp,” she says. Her old imaginings are, _perhaps_ , coming to fruition. “Right here in our basement? Oh, Dr. Stacey, that sounds glorious.”

“Don’t get too excited, Anne,” says Dr. Stacey, but she sounds as though she understands, despite it all. 

So Anne’s not sure why, again, she finds herself at her comm. station feeling more or less adrift.

“ _Not_ weltschmerz,” Anne says aloud, to the blinking coloured lights on her comm. panel.

“What in heavens’ name is a weltschmerz,” says Marilla. Anne turns around so fast her braid whips itself around and nearly takes out her own eye; Marilla, in the doorway, looks mildly alarmed. “Never mind. I brought you some food, Anne. I figured you’ve been holed up here for an age and a half.”

“Monitoring the incoming frequencies,” Anne confirms, and then slumps backwards a little. “In case _they_ decided to show up. Not that they will, Marilla -- they’ve practically forgotten we exist, as I told Dr. Stacey only last week, unless your fortuitous arrival changes the tide of adventure but then _how_ can I feel anything but misery over that, as it’s a misfortune? I’m sure that’s terribly wicked of me, Marilla, and I can’t even tell Gil or Diana about it, but now I’m back to being here with these wretched comms and you must think me so un-industrious for all my dolore but,” she takes breath, “ _why_ did I study historical literature, Marilla?”

It’s so very pleading in tone; Marilla, still hovering in the doorway with the enclosed ration packet and one plastiwrap bundled lump held in her well-weathered hands, softens, but says,

“Well, because you’re good at it, I reckon,” in a tone that makes the statement seem more than manifestly clear.

“But why couldn’t I have been good at something _else_ ,” exclaims Anne, slumping back even farther in her seat. Marilla’s steps forward look as discerning as the rest of her; she’s rolled her own sleeves up her elbows, because she’s wearing one of Matthew’s older and more worn jackets -- the sort that allow for rolled sleeves, as they’re practically designed -- and weathered denims. Anne can’t remember the last time she saw denim; Marilla must have kept it in the storage bunker at Green Gables, all this time.

Something about this gives Anne a measure of comfort, in spite of herself.

Marilla settles herself on the edge of Anne’s chair and deposits her assorted food parcels into Anne’s lap. 

“I managed to spirit along some plum puffs before the world ended,” she says, dryly. “I suppose you young people can survive on rehydrated ration packs just fine, but you oughtn’t _need_ to.” She pauses. “Not all the time, anyhow.”

“Marilla --”

“ _Eat_ ,” says Marilla. Then she says, “now see here, Anne Shirley. There’s always something to do. You can either figure it out and _do_ it, or you can sit around feeling sorry for yourself.” She pauses, for the first time looking rather unsure of herself, and then puts one arm around Anne’s shoulders in a well-practiced motion. “You’ve always been a bright girl, Anne. Matthew said -- well, we both knew you’d be up to some real important things, one day. Sometimes it just takes a little longer to do the figuring out, if that makes sense.”

The comm. panel beeps. Anne continues to frown.

“I suppose,” she says.

“And that’s a _good_ thing,” adds Marilla, severely. Her arm against Anne’s neck is solid, and warm, in a way that not many things in The Fort of Misery are. “I’d guess nothing good ever came out of just _rushing_ into things, Anne. We’d all do better to take a moment to think.”

“Moody’s got potatoes growing in the bottom lab bench,” Diana tells Anne, her grin evident in her voice as she stares up at the ceiling above their bunk. “I think he accidentally invented a new species of them. And Jane says she’s figured a way to hack the camera system so that people can use the ‘freshers. And of course, Gilbert and Dr. Stacey are taking care of all the medical stuff --”

“Medical stuff, schmedical stuff,” says Anne.

“That’s not very charitable of you, Anne,” says Diana, but it doesn’t really carry any accusation. Anne turns her face and presses it into her pillow. It’s always been a miserable, hard-backed thing -- the pillow has been. 

“I know,” she says. Then, “what about all the other people out there, Diana? Who don’t have Moody’s potatoes and the disabled cameras and Gil -- people who can take care of them? Remember the news holos? About Outpost TO1800?”

There’s a faint shuffling above her as Diana considers this.

“Yes,” she says, finally, in a whisper. “I remember, Anne. I just don’t know what we can do. Everything outside The Fort of Misery is -- what did you call it the other week?”

“Rife with corruption,” recites Anne. A pause. “Gilbert agreed with me.”

“Exactly,” says Diana.

They lapse into a prolonged silence. AV1883’s never had much in the way of ambient noise, save the occasional strong atmospheric wind. Now, Anne can hear the faint murmur of their friends and family members in the basement, through the vents.

Briefly, suddenly, she very much hates the world.

“Me too, Anne,” says Diana, the quiet, soulful commiseration that can only happen between bosom friends. “But I -- I trust you.”

“Trust _me_?” asks Anne, bewildered. Her sheets are far too stiff and cold tonight. She’d get up and go sit under the prototype simulation ceiling in search of some profound contemplation except she’s only wearing a regulation tanktop and her underwear, and she’s sure Gilbert’s still in the lab, sorting through the blood tests Dr. Stacey made sure everyone got.

A small part of her, maybe that adrift part -- maybe the _weltschmerz_ part -- thinks that perhaps that’s exactly why she should just go for it. She doesn’t know that he’d have objections.

“Yes,” says Diana, disrupting this singularly unhelpful thought. “You always figure things out, Anne. Your thoughts are always so much bigger than what we’re stuck in.”

Her cheeks and neck are flushed, from her earlier, ridiculous impulse. Bigger thoughts. Hmph. _Maybe that’s just the problem_ , Anne wants to say. 

“Thank you, Diana,” she says instead. “You are the _truest_ of friends.” And then she pulls the cool, stiff sheets over her face.

Anne makes her way down to the lab the next morning thinking that perhaps she can invent some games for the children to play, until Diana gets their level of schooling sorted. None of the mandated curriculum stuff can be accessed through personal info pads anymore, not since the lockdown. And they can’t very well go around asking anyone for help, either. 

“And a good thing, too,” says Mr. Harrison. “All that was stuff and nonsense, anyway.”

Anne doesn’t know how she feels about this, just as she doesn’t know how she feels about a great many other things. 

She stops in the makeshift break room adjacent to the lab benches to grab a nutrient bar for breakfast when she sees a flashing message light blinking on the top left corner on her personal infopad. It’s the pale, electric blue sort, the one she used to get so excited about when she first got her own personal pad -- ages ago now it seems. Before she ever attempted -- _and failed_ , says a traitorous voice in the back of her head -- to complete a doctorate. Blue in its more electric shades had seemed so thrilling, then.

Anne opens the message and feels the abrupt pull of a smile at her mouth, around the bulging nutrient bar between her teeth.

**_New Message dt. 0800 hr. From Gilbert:_**

_longing, ennui, angst, anemoia_

_(possible synonyms for weltschmerz?)_

Her fingers hover over the infoscreen.

**_New Message dt. 0832 hr. To Gilbert:_ **

_partial to ennui_

**_0832 hr. From Gilbert:_ **

_we’re limiting ourselves to only 1? but think of the possibilities_

**_0833 hr. To Gilbert:_ **

_I believe once we find the right word itll be powerful enough to not need reinforcements_

**_0833 hr. From Gilbert:_ **

_got it_

_not ennui then_

**_0833 hr. To Gilbert:_ **

_Why in stars name NOT_

**_0834 hr. From Gilbert:_ **

_hasnt got the zest. i’ll keep thinking_

She hesitates again, momentary. Impulse gets the better of her -- doesn’t it always?

**_0834 hr. To Gilbert:_ **

_While youre at it, can you look up some synonyms for “helplessness” too_

She makes a face as soon as she’s sent it, and promptly drops the pad back down on the table. Oh -- _oooh_. There is quite certainly an _ooh_ of frustration brewing under the surface of Anne’s chest, she decides. She does not like it.

“Good morning Anne,” comes Dr. Stacey’s voice, as the afore-described hero and legend sweeps into the room. Her arms are laden with a heavy-looking stack of lab samples -- _not_ Moody’s, this time. Anne leaps to her feet immediately, nearly sending the pad careening off the bench. She’s taken half the stack out of Dr. Stacey’s arms before the other woman can so much as formulate a protest.

“I can help you with these,” Anne says, quite emphatically. “I’m very good at carrying things -- anything, really. I’m quite as strong as any member of any male species -- I know we haven’t had much interspecies galactic contact since the lockdown, Dr. Stacey, but the general statement still applies as Matthew used to say it all the time and _he_ knew. Even ask Gilbert. Thought he might try to be funny about it so don’t ask him, but I really want you to know that I’m --”

“Here to help, Anne,” says Dr. Stacey, and she sets down her remaining samples. She adjusts her glasses just a bit. “I know.”

“Oh,” says Anne. She’s lost her steam; she can feel herself flushing at the desperation in her own tone, underneath all of her damnable freckles. “I’m --”

“You know,” says Dr. Stacey, “I had a colleague, once -- before our circumstances changed so drastically. She worked in --”

“Anthropology,” says Anne, a bit breathless.

“Exactly right,” says Dr. Stacey. “And you know what used to tell me? Well. Civilizations are built on communities. And communities need all sorts of people.”

Anne, routed, hovers. 

“Even ones who’ve studied historical literature?” she asks, finally, in a somewhat lame tone of voice.

Dr. Stacey’s smile is extra bright. “Even those,” she says. And then she makes her way across the lab and to the stairs crossing the outpost block, to the basement bunker.

Anne’s pad is blinking with a _received message_ light again. She looks down.

**_0840 hr. From Gilbert:_ **

_resourceful, competent, capable, enterprising, independent_

“Those weren’t synonyms,” Anne informs him, twenty minutes later, more loftily than strictly necessary. Anne’s feet go _clang clang_ in a weird echo-y way against the catwalk that leads out to the middle of the lab’s prototype simulation ceiling room. Dr. Stacey is working with Moody on more agricultural endeavours and Jane and Ruby and Diana are looking to set up an algorithm that sends encrypted messages to other lab Outposts. Aunt Josephine’s started teaching the other refugees ancient, pre-federation latin. 

“Antonyms are our friends,” says Gilbert, up at the polluted, forever-grey sky.

“I’ve decided I’m going to write our story,” says Anne. This gets his attention -- he looks over, to face her properly, eyebrows twitching under his curly fringe. “The Fort of Misery’s,” she clarifies. Then he grins.

“Took you long enough.”

“ _That_ is not a tone of voice I appreciate,” says Anne, but she sits down beside him anyway. They remain quiet for all of two heartbeats before she leans over and rests her head against his shoulder; he doesn’t stiffen, but it’s not exactly something she’s done for a while. She says, “it’ll be a way of -- reaching out beyond ourselves, I think. If Jane and Diana’s encryption method works.”

“Stories can do that,” he agrees, in quiet affirmation. “You’d know that better than anyone, Anne-girl.”

She’s still stung, just a little.

“You could’ve just _told_ me that. A reminder, or something, so I didn’t spend two weeks running around like -- like --”

“Someone full of weltschmerz?” Gilbert offers, innocently. She doesn’t smack him. His eyes, warm and hazel, twinkle with mirth.

“I hate that we’re friends now. We should go back to being enemies.”

“Excuse me, Ms. Shirley,” Gilbert says, “you’ve been _my_ friend since the start. And I asked you to marry me, and everything, just last month.”

Anne groans and turns her face further into the soft fabric of his t-shirt. 

“The _universe_ is a disaster, Gil.”

“Patently unrelated.”

She looks up at him, baleful, from under her lashes. Even in the bad lighting of Their Favorite Spot Under The Prototype Simulation Ceiling, Gilbert has a boyish quality to his brow, and mouth, and cheeks. It’s -- good, she thinks. It’s something. Her throat sticks and unsticks. Beneath them, AV1883 is alive with purpose like it hasn’t been in ages, maybe ever. Anne wonders if they’d have gotten here had half their family members not fallen at the doorstep by pure accident.

“Yes we would have,” says Gilbert. “Because of you, Anne.”

“Please don’t say that, Gilbert.”

“If you hadn’t been so determined to figure out the melancholy,” he starts, then stops. “I really do think _weltschmerz_ is the right word, Anne.”

“ _Oooh_ ,” says Anne. But she thinks -- he might be right.

She pouts, and the noise at the back of Gilbert’s throat is in itself teasing but not teasing. Anne thinks that his shoulder is very sturdy and comfortable and just as solid as it looks when she most-certainly-does-not sneak peaks of it across the lab in weaker moments. His hands have come around to cover hers, so she decides to focus on them, on the way his fingers run over her knuckles. Very capable fingers, Gilbert has -- she’s always thought. As extensions of the rest of his hands. Steady, and careful, and precise and judicious. Good at sorting through blood samples and siphoning biohaz dishes and writing e-tests in the TO18800 campus pre-med track. Good at caring for people, and discovering new things. Happy to get dirty. Happy to ground her when she feels like the grav controls have broken and she’s going to float out of The Fort of Misery and into the smothered chaos of the broken down galaxy.

“What am I _doing_ , Gil,” she says at last. “Even with this -- it’s not enough.”

“But it’s what you’re good at,” says Gilbert. “Tell our stories -- their stories. Capture what we’re doing here, even when we’re forgotten by the rest of the world.”

“The rest of the world,” says Anne, half a scoff. But Gilbert’s next words are gentle.

“Sure, Anne. It is a mess out there. But -- that doesn’t mean there isn’t a -- a richness, or something.” There’s that boyish quality to him again. The one Anne never knows quite what to do with. 

The one Anne maybe loves. 

“A richness,” she repeats.

“To what _you’ve_ got to give.” 

“And you,” she says, before she can stop herself. “What we’ve _all_ got to give.” 

He grins at her, like he’s outsmarted her, like _gotcha_. Anne feels something swell and release in her chest. Maybe it’s that age-old competitiveness. Or maybe it’s something else -- a type of determination. Liquid steel.

“But still romantic,” she says out loud. “Oh -- dear. That was just the end of the thought.”

“ _Anne_ ,” says Gilbert, the laugh bubbling out of him like he couldn’t stop it to save the world. Anne wonders if purpose can be imbibed upon her purely through the way her name fits in his mouth. But that truly _is_ a romantical thought. Now Marilla’s here Anne shall have to try to quell those, at least sometimes.

_This_ thought makes her smile, wider and sillier than she thought she could, which leads to a laugh, which ends, somehow, in their foreheads pressed together. 

“You’re so full of _idea_ , Anne,” Gilbert says. They’re close as anything now -- close as two people can be, in an outpost as sterile and impersonal as this, here in the deadened afterwards of the end times. But also -- just the opposite. Isn’t it filled with people? _Alive_ with people, now? “Words, and -- and _thoughts_ , and feelings. That’s -- that’s transformative, I think.”

“You think,” she repeats, again.

“If you let it be,” with a small, teasing quirk at the corner of his mouth, the one that she knows so well.

“Oh, Gil,” she says. There’s the sudden, sudden thought -- of all to come, all they can _do_. All they can build, and give, and work together on.

The kiss she gives him is small, like an affirmation. Above them, the grey sky parts, just a sliver, and the light of a twinkling star flashes for the briefest second.


End file.
